Floating
by Ukaisha
Summary: Takuya couldn't understand the concept of death. He was just so young, he thought everyone he loved was just invincible. Especially his baby brother. Poor Shinya was far too young to die. If only he'd had his floaties.


Disclaimer: The author takes no claim of the characters.

Quick A/N: Short. Ironically, the first fanfic I've uploaded here in ages is short, depressing, and has no pairing at all. Guess I just felt like writing it. No intentions of continuing. Hope you enjoy it, or are depressed by it, or something, I really don't know what my intentions are.

_Floating_

I'm only six years old when I hear my mommy screaming. My daddy, my cousins, and I are playing basketball, or rather, he's trying to help me play despite my size, and occasionally he lifts me up so that I can triumphantly slam dunk the ball through the net. We're visiting my cousins for my daddy's birthday, and we're having a little party for him, just as a small family. There's lots of good food. I'd just left Mommy. She was eating. Now she's screaming. I don't understand why she's screaming, but it scares me. Daddy runs to her and leaves me. I have two older cousins; Noboru, who is fourteen, and Chihiro, who is sixteen. Chi-chan runs to her mommy, who is my aunt, and Nobu-chan and his daddy, my uncle, go with Daddy. I'm left all alone, and I'm afraid. They're all running around like crazy, and suddenly, Daddy starts running towards the pool. He's screaming, "The door is open! The door is open!" Everyone is running to the pool. I'm afraid, but I'm not crying, because I'm not upset. I feel like all these things are happening to me, yet nothing is really happening. It's sort of like a dream. I'm running to catch up with everyone, but they're far ahead of me. I can just see them all around the pool, and in it, I see something floating. Daddy jumps into the water, and Mommy is crying really hard. I still don't know what's happening, and I'm silent as I watch it all unfold. No one pays any attention to little Takuya, totally lost and totally confused.  
Daddy comes up, and he's carrying a little boy. I suddenly realize that my baby brother, Shinya, isn't here. I can see Uncle, Auntie, Chi-chan, Nobu-chan, Mommy, and now, Daddy, but I don't see Shinya. Is Shinya that little body? Why was he in the pool? He's only two years old; the little guy can't swim without his floaties. They're lying off to the side of the pool. Why would Shinya be in the pool without his floaties?  
"Oh my God," Mommy sobs, and she takes Shinya away from Daddy. She lays him on the ground, and she opens his mouth. Water spills out, and Mommy screams, "Call an ambulance! For the love of God, call an ambulance!" before reaching down and kissing Shinya like she kisses Daddy. I almost leave to the house, wondering if Mommy is telling me to call the ambulance, but Uncle runs into the house, totally ignoring that I'm there. Nobu-chan and Chi-chan are watching as silently as me, but still, I feel like I'm the one watching from afar. Mommy pushes on his chest, and more water comes out, then she kisses him again. Shinya's face looks really blue, and his forehead looks black, like he's a clown with a painted face. Mommy stops kissing Shinya and she starts sobbing again, "HELP! Oh God, help my baby!" Auntie takes Mommy off to the side, and Daddy starts kissing Shinya. I want to go over to my mommy and ask her what's wrong, but Auntie and Daddy are trying too hard to calm her down, and I feel like I shouldn't bother her.  
"It's alright, he's going to be okay, we got him out in time, it's alright," Daddy kept saying over and over again. Auntie was comforting her too, saying that everything was going to be okay.   
"Look, see? He's coughing up water. He's okay, he's still alive, and he's going to pull through this. It's all going to be okay." Mommy is still sobbing, Daddy is still pushing on Shinya's chest, and Shinya is still not moving. He throws up, which for some reason absolutely thrills Daddy, then he falls back onto the pavement. He looks so little in Daddy's arms, and so weak, I'm suddenly reminded of just how young he really is. He's really just a baby.  
"See? He's okay. He's just got most of the water out of his system, and he's going to be okay."

The ambulance came. I still haven't said anything, and no one has paid attention to me for a long time. Everyone is crowding around Mommy, Daddy, and Shinya. Mommy is still sobbing, and Daddy is still trying to revive Shinya and comfort Mommy. My baby brother isn't moving, but I think he's breathing. I wonder if he's okay, and I'm about to ask the ambulance guys if he's okay, when Daddy finally remembers I'm here.  
"Come on, Takuya. We have to go to the hospital." The men in white jackets are taking Shinya away. They're yelling at each other and they're putting him into the back of their truck. He looks so tiny on their big stretcher.  
For the first time, I find myself speaking. "Daddy, what happened?"  
He doesn't answer me. "Let's go, Takuya." I go with him to our car. My cousins are driving in their own car. Mommy is riding with the men. Daddy and I are alone.  
"Daddy?"  
"Be quiet now, Takuya." He's very tense. I feel like I shouldn't talk right now, so I don't. I'm beginning to understand what's happening. Shinya might be hurt. He couldn't swim and when he got in the pool, the water hurt him. He couldn't swim without his floaties.  
Daddy and I ran all over the hospital looking for the men and Mommy. We finally found her, along with Auntie, Uncle, Nobu-chan, Chi-chan, and my Grammy. I wondered why Grammy was here, but Daddy didn't seem to wonder. He unloaded me with her, and went to comfort Mommy. Everyone was grave.  
"Grammy?"  
She looked down at me, and tried to give me a reassuring smile. "What is it, Taku-chan?"  
"What happened to Shinya?"  
Mommy heard my question, and she started sobbing louder.  
"Shinya might be hurt, Taku-chan. He might be hurt very badly."  
"Oh." I guessed as much. Shinya was in the pool. He couldn't swim, and he didn't have his floaties, so the water hurt him. I knew he was hurt. I didn't understand why, or how he was hurt, but I knew something was wrong. But no one would tell me, what happened to my baby brother? Even now, the only person in the world who seemed to recognize I existed was Grammy.  
"It could be worse," I offered. "It could've been me." No one paid attention to the little six year old. Takuya was invisible. Mommy was still sobbing, and Daddy was still trying to comfort her, though he was starting to cry too. I repeated myself louder.  
"It could be worse," I said, "It could've been-"  
"Hush, don't say things like that, Takuya," Grammy scolded, and I stopped. I didn't understand why I couldn't talk about my brother, and why I couldn't hear what had happened to him. It scared me. I didn't want to be silent, and I didn't want to be shut out. I wanted Mommy to hold me and cry on me and tell me what was wrong with my baby brother. The poor little guy. I could remember him even now, lying on that concrete ground and black and blue all over. One second, I was playing with him just before I went off to play basketball with Daddy. The next, he's throwing up water. I can't even think about my baby brother without imagining him like that. Mommy is trying to tell Daddy what the men in the ambulance told her. She said Shinya had found the door open, and had run into the pool deck. He loved the pool. He thought it was so much fun. But he slipped on the concrete, and he hurt his head. Then he fell into the pool, and couldn't even cry. He just floated there until Daddy finally found him. That's why he didn't even have his floaties.

A long time later, a man in white comes to see us. He addresses Mommy and Daddy first. Mommy is calm now. Strangely calm. Daddy is the one who's crying. I still feel like a stranger looking into a family who's not my own. Mommy hasn't looked at me once, and neither has Daddy. Grammy just keeps me right next to her, holding my hand extremely tight, and looking straight ahead, completely ignoring everyone. The man says we need to go with him, and Mommy and Daddy do. Uncle, Auntie, and my cousins stay in the room, and Grammy brings me along. I still don't say anything. I'd been told many times before, "Be seen, not heard," and I'd never held more appropriately to that saying until this day. I'm still not crying, and I'm still not upset. I'm vaguely concerned, but all of this is happening in a blur. I can't think about things like hospital beds and dead brains and breathing machines like the man is talking about. Mommy has started sobbing again, and Daddy is just shaking his head, going,  
"Brain dead, brain dead..."  
We arrive in a tiny room. The man pulls a curtain around us in a real big square, totally hiding everyone from sight, like we're in a white fortress. Shinya is lying on a bed, and he looks even smaller now than he did by the pool. There's lots of little things hooked up to him and tubes and stuff in his nose; _that _is really scary. The man says "brain dead" again. I want to say something, because hearing "dead" so many times made me wonder if Shinya was dying. I wanted to scream out, "Dead? My brother is dying? My little brother is dying?" but I couldn't say anything. I could just stand and observe, and listen to words I could barely understand.  
"Is there any chance he can recover?" says Daddy, and the man in white shook his head.  
"No chance at all. He'd probably been underwater for three, four, maybe five minutes. The brain starts dying after two. He's far beyond help."  
"Is he...going to die?" Grammy asked, and Mommy fell on her shoulder.  
"Oh, no. He'll live. But he won't be a little boy. He'll have to use special equipment to breath, and he'll need to eat through a tube. You'll need to change his diapers for the rest of his life. He'll never acknowledge that you're his family, and he'll never recognize anyone, or think, or develop mentally."  
"So, he may as well just be dead, because he's a vegetable," said Mommy, bitterly. The man in white shrugged.  
"Technically, I'm not allowed to persuade you either way. But if I may offer my personal opinion rather than my professional...you're right. He may just as well be dead. As his family, you're allowed to decide what you want for him. Do you want him to continue living like this, as he is? Because if you leave him alone, he will live. He'll survive just fine. But his quality of life will be...nothing. Or, you can choose to pull the plug, and let him die. It will be painless for him. He won't even recognize death. You'd be showing him mercy."  
I just remember Mommy nodding her head. Daddy said they had to think about it. I tried to reach out to touch my baby brother, but Grammy pulled me away. We went out through the curtain, and I saw that Grammy was crying too. I wanted to ask her, Grammy, why are you crying? Why is Mommy crying? Why is Daddy crying? Why are we all crying? Why wasn't I crying?  
And most of all, I wanted to know, what is wrong with my little brother?

When we went back into the curtain, Mommy was leaning over Shinya. She was whispering to him. Daddy finally took notice of me, and pat me on the back.  
"Do you want me to pick you up again so you can get a good look at him one last time?" I nodded, not entirely sure what he meant. But he picked me up, neat as you please, like he had so short a time ago as we played basketball. And I finally got a good look at my brother. He was pale. His mouth was slightly open, but his eyes were closed. Tubes really were sticking through his nose, and I thought, wow, that's so gross. He looked so small, and so weak. I was scared for him. I still didn't understand what was happening. I knew it was bad, and I knew I'd never see him again. I was afraid; I didn't want to never see my brother again. That seemed so wrong. He was so little. I reach out to touch him again, but Daddy starts putting me down before I can.  
"Finished saying goodbye?" The man in white said, and Mommy nodded her head. Something happened. A bunch of noises stopped. I was still staring up at my brother, and I could see him breathing for a few more seconds. Then, he just stopped. I start panicking.  
"Mommy? Mommy, why isn't Shinya breathing?"  
"Oh, God," Mommy said, and she started crying again. She had no emotional strength to comfort me, so Daddy, tired as he was, tried to.  
"Takuya, I'm sorry, but...Shinya's dead. He's gone to a better place now."  
"Why is he dead? Why? He was fine just then, he was fine! I saw him, he was okay, why did you kill him?" Mommy sobbed even louder, and ran out of the curtain. Grammy followed. The man in white started pulling removing tubes and stuff from Shinya's body. My little brother didn't move at all. My brother, my baby brother.  
"Why is he dead?" Even now, I wasn't crying, I was just yelling. I wanted an answer! Everyone had been ignoring me, pretending I wasn't there, pretending I didn't even exist, and suddenly, my brother's dead? Why didn't anyone tell me? Why didn't anyone tell me what was wrong? Why was I kept in the dark so long until the last minute, when everything was too late?  
"Takuya..." Daddy suddenly looked very old. I remember thinking, this morning, when Mommy teased him about his age, wow, Daddy is really old. He looked a lot older now, like today had been ten birthdays instead of just one.  
"Why, why," I kept sniffling, until I finally started crying. I didn't understand, and I couldn't comprehend death. I was so young, I didn't really understand that something so close to me could just suddenly be gone forever. Daddy kneeled down and hugged me close, and the man in white covered Shinya's tiny body with a sheet. My little, baby brother. My baby brother was dead. He'd died in a pool. He hadn't even had his floaties.


End file.
